What do you think? A new TU invites you to Live Smarter

We’d like your feedback on our new Times Union, which today showcases both our new printing technology and content offerings. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions on this post, and we’ll read every one and keep them in mind as we tweak this new TU.

Fundamentally, your newspaper will be the same, continuing to focus on what you’ve told us are the features most important to you: local news, watchdog reporting that especially targets state government and politics, and coverage of such issues as health, schools, our area’s technology growth and our thriving local entertainment scene. But we are taking the opportunity of a new press to enhance our content and design.

Before I give you a run-down of changes, I invite you to read Editor Rex Smith’s letter to readers published Sunday, March 17, in a special section (Your New TU):

In the life of a newspaper, few changes are as momentous as the commissioning of a new press. A shift in ownership, maybe, would be another point in time as noteworthy as this in the 157 years that the Times Union has been a part of this community.

By that standard, the foundation for what we’re celebrating now was laid in 1924, when William Randolph Hearst added Albany to the cities served by his already vast media empire. These 89 years of Hearst stewardship have coincided with the emergence of the Times Union as the dominant player in the Capital Region’s communication sector, so that today the Times Union isn’t just a newspaper but also a suite of digital products and a cluster of lifestyle magazines, together reaching an audience nobody could have imagined those decades ago.

But newspapering is in a period of tumult, as everybody knows. People get information from all over the place these days, from the printed page to laptops, mobile devices and tablets. While all those channels give us a broader reach than ever before, fewer people are choosing to read a daily newspaper. That presents quite a challenge to the business model that has long supported our journalism.

Other publishers in other cities have responded by shutting down their printing presses or restricting newspaper delivery to certain days of the week. Under the leadership of William Randolph Hearst’s great-grandson, George R. Hearst III, our publisher since 2009 and a part of the Times Union team since 1989, we’re meeting the challenge differently.

Our choice is to create a better print product that will serve the base of readers who love a daily dose of words and images on paper. We’re improving the newspaper, not diminishing it — upgrading both our printing technology and our content offerings. On a machine created by the world’s leading printing press manufacturer, we are ready to produce a world-class local newspaper.

The new Times Union will stand proudly alongside our award-winning website, timesunion.com, as well as our iPad, mobile and electronic editions, our six targeted consumer magazines and the digital marketing solutions we offer businesses. Through all of that, the reach of Times Union content will continue to grow.

That’s important because a newspaper — by which I mean in this case everything we do here, including our exciting new print edition — exists mainly to fulfill a journalistic mission. Our goal is to give you a clear picture of what lies beyond your own experience — to do nothing less than, in the words of our code of conduct, seek the truth and report it fully. We do that with everything from investigative reporting on government to tales of ordinary people in our community doing extraordinary things to information about entertainment at local venues — and so much more. It’s no small undertaking.

We think the Times Union can help you live smarter, as our new marketing slogan suggests. If we didn’t believe that, and didn’t have a plan to deliver on that promise, it wouldn’t have made sense for the Hearst Corporation, one of the world’s leading multimedia companies, to have made the big investment in this community that the new press represents.

For we believe in the Capital Region, and we believe that through this change, the Times Union will be an important part of our community’s life for many years to come.

With that in mind, let’s turn to some of the new content and design elements likely to draw your attention:

Content

A stand-alone Business section six days a week, with expanded coverage of personal finance.

A Perspective section, which features commentary and opinions on the news and voices from all sides of the political debate, seven days a week.

A new Solutions section devoted to helping you manage your household (including the Shoppertunist column by Shannon Fromma on how to use local coupons to lower your shopping costs).

Expanded coverage of the growing technology sector in the Capital Region.

Tell us what you like and don’t like in the comments section below, and give us your ideas for more enhancements. You can also send comments to tureaderrep@timesunion.com or just call me at (518) 454-5324.

Tena Tyler

46 Responses

One of the reasons I still pay to receive the paper edition of the TU is that I enjoy doing with puzzles and word games every morning. Please adjust the Sudoku puzzle so it is a more reasonable size – the former size was fine. Many of the folks who do these puzzles are of the age where we need larger fonts, not smaller. Also the compressed grid, which makes the Sudoku boxes rectangular instead of square, is annoying.

From Tena: Hi Liz — To be sure, we had to do a fair amount of shoehorning to get in everything that we had previously and, as a result, some things shrunk. I’m keeping a running list of nits, and, where feasible, we’ll try to address them over the next month.

The new format for the newspaper is clean and bright. But I don’t think that the new format will alter the trajectory of the TU and newspapers in general.

As a subscriber, I believe that the TU would be wise to offer a free website with local weather and “teasers” of news stories, a paid site which provided whole stories and much more detail, and the paper based news for a shrinking readership.

The new crossword puzzle layout in the classified section doesn’t work well. The old one allowed you see the clues and puzzle at one time. The paper could also be folded into a small shape and easily held in one hand.

Now the puzzle isn’t quite below the fold and the clues are above the fold. You have to keep flipping the page to work the puzzle.

The larger font is nice but someway to get the puzzle on the same fold as the clues would be nicer. Maybe move down yesterday’s answers to a space below the puzzle, reduce the clue font a bit, and get the puzzle above the fold.

From Tena: We’re working on exactly this crossword puzzle issue. The first remedy that we’re going to try (in tomorrow’s paper) is putting the grid at the top. Give it a look and let me know. Given the narrower width, I don’t know that we can get all of it above the fold. But let’s start with this tweak and see what we think. Please let me know tomorrow.

The only things I don’t like about the new format is that Dilbert is in the business section not the comics and the state weather map might need to use different colors for the icons, it was hard to see the cloud/snowflake icons in today’s paper because they were such a light shade of gray (also the markers for Buffalo and Syracuse are too far south).

From Tena: Growing pains. We’re working on understanding exactly what happened, and we’ll be posting a news story once we have a bit more solid information and I’ll share that here once it’s researched and written.

Almost impossible to do the Sudoku – part of my morning routine!
Can it be enlarged (maybe moved) so you have room to write possible numbers in the boxes? Please?!
Also, no room to write the letter clues to the Jumble (needed to figure out the answer). The whole thing is very crowded, and I think you have to forget about comics that aren’t on these 2 pages – people won’t look at them routinely.
I always have read most of the paper, but miss doing these puzzles as a relaxing start to my day.

From Tena: We’ve heard from others, too, and are looking into the design on that page. I don’t know that we’ll be able to satisfy everyone, but we’re going to wait till we’ve gotten enough feedback so we can try.

Where can we find the Super Quiz (formerly Asimov) each day? It used to be in the comics section under Dear Abby and the horoscopes. The first couple of days of the new layout it was next to the TV grid. But today (saturday) it was nowhere to be found. Our family really enjoys doing the quiz around the dinner table. Can you please keep it in one place?

The new paper is indeed more crisp. Congratulations on your new presses, and for continuing to publish a good local paper that benefits our region and keeps us informed. What I am concerned about, however, is that I preceive (I hope it is merely a perception) that more space is being absorbed by photos and by formerly smaller info boxes (e.g. the “check out this blog” paras on the op ed page). It seems that the actual written content is shrinking!!! It also seems that the array of columnists is also not available (Maureen Dowd, Eugene Robinson, George Will, etc.). Where is Fred LeBrun??? And, also hopefully just my imagination, is there a shift to softer stories? I enjoy the TU for the insightful state/local stories that go indepth. While I understand that times must change and you need to respond to the economics of newspaper production and the need to be more visual, I do hope that some of the “old magic” will be there.

From Tena: The paper is a bit narrower and shorter, but I think your perception may be off on the photos and boxes. My understanding from our designers is that we are actually running photos, boxes, graphics, etc. smaller than we did in the old press. We had to run them larger on the old press to accommodate its lacking reproduction and that issue, obviously, has gone away. In terms of the nationally syndicated columnists, I spoke with Editorial Page Editor Jay Jochnowitz who tells me we are running all the same columnists we did previously over the course of a week, but some will be a day later due to earlier deadlines for the new press. As for Fred, he’s always appeared on Sundays (at least in his current columnist role), and he continues to be on the cover of the Capital Region section on Sundays. As far as “softer” content goes, geez, I hope that’s a perception that will change. We’ve actually worked very hard to redouble our commitment to investigative and watchdog reporting and have a list as long as my arm for solid enterprise through the summer. But, certainly, we welcome continued feedback, especially if you continue to see content that isn’t up to the standards you expect from us.

I really like your new format and paper size! I only have 2 comments/wishes for changes: (1) Compact the size of the daily crossword puzzle (too long and narrow), and (2) Add a Sunday Jumble to the paper. Thanks.

Would like to see the car & truck ads placed in separate sections rather than taking up half the local or sports sections. Also , the classified ads , why cant you keep them together? If I want to buy a vehicle I can easily find it if they are all in the same place, rather than having Billys face to look at as I am reading the sports section

Love the new format. The reorganized sections are better than before and I love the color. I wasn’t sure at first if I would like the new size but find that I prefer it. Congratulations on a job very well done. You have very satisfied customers in our household.

I like the new size of the paper, however because of the narrower columns the sentences flow less smoothly. It may just be a matter of getting used to it. I also like all the color and the more natural colors. The colored comics are fun and I’ve read the comics since childhood. The additional sectioning makes it easier to share the paper with my husband in the morning.

I do wish the TU could afford to publish more of the national columnists altho I understand why most no longer appear. It is my hope that the NYT puzzle will continue to appear on Sunday.